


do not stand at my grave

by monstermash



Series: memento mori (remember, you will die) [7]
Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 5
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Ghost Shenanigans, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-28
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2019-05-29 19:13:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15079817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monstermash/pseuds/monstermash
Summary: On August 16th, 2018 at 3:34pm, Deputy Garrett Rook and John Seed die when both of their planes crash.They died, but they didn’t leave.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hhhhhhh here i am starting another fic yet again. i can't even stop myself lmao.
> 
> but yea, ghost au where the deputy and john seed both die during john's boss fight and are still hanging around as ghosts
> 
> EDIT: not gonna finish this, sorry.

Death had become very commonplace in Hope County in the past couple of months.

The biggest loss felt by both the cultists and those resisting them came in late summer, in the August heat of an afternoon that by all accounts should’ve been quiet and peaceful, but was instead filled with the sounds of gunfire and planes flying about overhead. There were two airplanes in particular that had almost everyone in Holland Valley watching them.

Watching them fight, watching them evade.

Watching them plummet towards the ground faster than Icarus fell.

And neither got back up.

On August 16th, 2018 at 3:34pm, Deputy Garrett Rook and John Seed die when both of their planes crash.

They died, but they didn’t leave.

\---

“Is that…?”

“Looks like it, Deputy.”

“Well, _shit.”_

\---

Okay, so he was dead now. It was bound to happen eventually, especially with the cult running around, but Garrett figured he at _least_ had another decade or so before dying. And definitely not because of a plane engine stalling on him. In all honesty, Garrett was pretty sure his death would be caused by tourists trying to feed the wildlife because they thought it was charming, or getting hit by a car because good lord did Hope County have a huge problem with hit and runs, even before the cult showed up.

Apparently he was wrong.

Because here he is, a ghost, with John Seed, who is now a ghost as well. And no one can hear or see them except for each other.

It’s the Peggies who find their bodies and wrecked planes first and John tries getting their attention to no avail.

“Unless you’re a poltergeist and start throwing shit around, I don’t think they’re gonna notice you, buddy,” Garrett tells him flatly as he sits on a piece of warped metal, watching John waving a hand right in front of one of the Peggie’s faces.

John scowls over his shoulder at Garrett. “What do you know, huh? And I’m not your ‘buddy,’ _sinner.”_

“Again with the sinner-shtick,” Garrett complains quietly under his breath before taking a deep breath that he doesn’t need any more and looks John in the eye. “Look, I’m just trying to keep expectations about our situation realistic.”

“We died and now we’re ghosts, nothing about this situation is _realistic.”_

… The guy’s got a point.

“Alright,” Garrett concedes, and then gestures over to the Peggies digging through the wreck. “And if you somehow manage to get their attention? What then? You can’t exactly be rescued from dying in a fiery plane crash.”

That stops him short and he considers Garrett’s words instead of flying off the handle in a spectacular fit of rage like Garrett had been expecting. John looks at him like he’s not sure if Garrett’s real.

“How can you be so calm about this?” John asks and that actually gets a laugh out of Garrett that startles the both of them.

“I’m not.”

Garrett isn’t calm about this at all, but someone has to keep a level head right now. It won’t do them any good if they both lose their collective shit. They’re stuck like this for the foreseeable future as far as Garrett can guess, until something happens. Like a white light or a door to the afterlife or the heat death of the known universe. 

Whichever comes first.

Or maybe they’ll still be stuck like this long after everything around them has withered and died and turned to dust.

Hell, he doesn’t even know _why_ this happened to them, why they’re ghosts now.

“I’m not calm,” Garrett repeats, not once breaking eye contact with John as the Peggies move about around them. “But freaking out right now won’t help me; won’t help us.”

John snorts, finally looking away from him and Garrett can see varying emotions flash through those too blue eyes. “This isn’t some kind of crime you can solve. We’re both dead.”

“I’m pretty sure there were at least several crimes committed leading up to this,” Garrett jokes weakly in an attempt to keep the gravity of the whole _‘we’re ghosts now’_ situation from getting unbearably heavy. Well, tries to anyway; by the unimpressed look on John’s face the guy doesn’t seem to be in a joking mood. In the brief time that Garrett has known John – and he uses the term lightly, because he’s pretty sure being harassed and nearly tortured multiple times by John isn’t exactly the best way to get to know someone – he’s never seen him in a joking mood.

At least, he’s never seen John (or any of the Seeds really) in a joking mood that didn’t involve inflicting serious bodily harm or emotional trauma on someone.

Silence falls between them, watching as their burnt beyond recognition corpses are dragged from the wreckage. Even Garrett can’t tell who is who.

The Peggies build a pyre and place both of their bodies onto it, also unable to distinguish one from the other, and for once there’s no scathing remark or biting words between Garrett and John. The two of them watch solemnly as their bodies turn to ash, as the wind scatters their remains across Holland Valley.

There’s no physical reminder of them left, only their ghosts.

They’re still standing there as the Peggies slowly leave after making sure the fire is put out, Garrett crossing his arms over his chest as he watches them go. “Well, this is a goddamn bitch of an unsatisfactory situation.”

“… Did you just quote _‘Brokeback Mountain’_ at me?”

“I sure did, John.”

He grins at John’s grimace of exasperation. It’s far too easy and entertaining to push his buttons.

“I’m going—I’m going to kill you.”

“But we’re already dead.”

“I’ll find a way,” John promises and Garrett can’t even suppress the laughter that bubbles over at how serious he looks when he says that. He waits until Garrett’s done laughing, glowering at him the entire time, before speaking again. “So we’re dead. What now?”

“Wail hauntingly through the moors? Go the Beetlejuice route?” Garrett shrugs. “I’m not exactly a ghost expert.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short chapter cuz i'm still trying to figure out where exactly i wanna go w/ this fic tbh

So far, being a ghost is just like being alive.

Except that Garrett doesn’t need to eat or sleep and doesn’t get exhausted walking five miles with a grumbling John Seed all the way back to Falls End. But it doesn’t seem like they can fly or anything like that, though maybe given more time in their new existence they might be able to do that? At the very least, Garrett thinks they should get some sort of cool ghost powers or something to make up for the whole, y’know, _ghost_ situation.

Also, he can’t help but feel like he’s forgetting something.

Something important…

“Hey, is it just me, or did we forget something?” Garrett asks and John has a pinched look on his face. “Because I feel like we did.”

“How should I know? Do we suddenly have a collective memory that I wasn’t aware of?”

Garrett rolls his eyes at him as they finally make it back to town and head towards the Spread Eagle. “Somebody woke up on the wrong side of the grave.”

John lets out a groan and swats at Garrett who quickens his pace to avoid it. “Do _not_ start with that.”

“Too soon?”

“Seeing as we died literally hours ago I’m going to go with yes.”

“Of course you would, it’s your favorite word.”

“Can’t you take anything seriously?” John asks, his temper starting to flare up and looking ready to strangle Garrett at any moment. He should probably find a healthier way to deal with his anger and frustration than violence. At least Garrett thinks he should otherwise it will be a very tiring however long they have as ghosts.

“Ask me again in a day,” Garrett shrugs and goes to push open the bar’s door only to fall right through with a hissed curse as he lands on his face. Huh, okay so two good things he just learned; one, they can just walk right through things, and two, it doesn’t seem like they can be physically hurt. At least they’ve established a learning curve of some sort.

John’s laughing at him and it’s surprisingly nice despite it being at Garrett's expense. It makes him sound less like a sadistic psychopath and more like a normal person.

Pushing himself off the floor, Garrett finally notices the somber atmosphere in the bar, sees just how many members of the resistance are gathered.

Sees Mary May sitting with Grace, Nick, and Jerome with Boomer curled up at their feet under the table. Their conversation is quiet, so Garrett moves closer, John trailing behind him but not looking all that interested in what’s going on.

Nick says something but cuts himself off with a hiss when he scratches at his chest.

“Quit touching it and it won’t hurt,” Grace says simply and Nick rolls his eyes at her.

Mary May’s face is blank, eyes not focusing on much of anything. She rubs at her face and Garrett can see her trying to make herself pay attention and he knows that look in her eye. It’s the same one look she had in her eye after Billy died, after Miranda and William died too; in a time that should be for grieving Mary May makes herself the emotional rock for those around her and it breaks Garrett’s heart to see her having to do so again.

It isn’t fair. It isn’t fair to any of them but mostly it isn’t fair to her.

Mary May always takes on so much stress, shoulders the emotional weight of others while burying her own and she shouldn’t have to.

He tries to rest a reassuring hand on her shoulder, but she only shivers slightly. Probably only feels it as a cold patch and that breaks his heart even more.

“Garrett has— _had_ made a lot of progress for us, taken back a lot of stolen property and supplies – not just here but all over the county – so we can hold our own for the most part,” Mary May says, fingers flexing around the neck of her beer bottle, mulling over what to say next. “We should probably figure out a way to get into John’s bunker and free the people who were snatched up before it went into lockdown.”

John’s bunker… Why does that feel so important?

There’s something there he’s forgotten.

Garrett turns to look at John, finds John already looking back at him, and it suddenly hits him.

“Oh shit, I forgot Hudson.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heeeeeeey the comeback of the ghost guys

“Do you even have a plan?” John asks, continuing to follow after Garrett to the other side of Holland Valley, towards the bunker Hudson is trapped in.

“Go in, find Hudson, get her out.”

“That’s not a plan, that’s a _goal.”_ John sounds exasperated but that’s not important right now.

“I fucked up enough cult shit just by winging it, so I think I’ll do just fine,” Garrett tells him as they arrive at the entrance to the bunker. “Hell, I’ll probably do better now that locks mean nothing to me now.”

“They didn’t mean anything to you when you were _alive,”_ John begrudgingly reminds him. Garrett shrugs and steps through the layers of metal and gears and _wow_ that’s so fucking _weird_ to just go through things like that.

The bunker is eerily quiet, distant sounds echoing off of the metal walls; the poor lighting isn’t any help in making this place look friendlier.

“You were really planning on living down here for the next decade?” Garrett asks with a grimace as he descends the stairs.

(In all honesty, he could probably just drop down through the floor, but it was weird enough going through the door.)

“Yes, actually,” John answers with a slightly frustrated sigh as he follows along.

Looking over his shoulder, Garrett can see the unhappy slant of John’s mouth and the furrow in his brow. “Y’know, it actually kinda fits in a messed up way; creepy dude living in a creepy bunker.”

The corners of the other man’s mouth pull down further as he glares at Garrett.

“I’m not _creepy,”_ he argues, a little petulant and it makes Garrett snort.

“Pal, you were stapling people’s _skin_ to the _walls._ You’re at least a little creepy.” Garrett tilts his head in thought as they come to the next sealed door that leads into the bunker proper. “And you kidnapped people and tortured them.”

“I was _saving_ them.”

“And look where it got you.”

He hears an explosive sigh behind him and watches as John walks angrily through the door. 

“Well _you_ were a damn _menace,_ constantly blowing things up and setting fires and killing the faithful.” John’s glaring at him, blue eyes burning bright as he gets into Garrett’s space, close enough that Garrett can’t look away from him but not close enough to touch. “Some man of the law _you_ turned out to be, going around _murdering._ Look where your behavior got _you.”_

Garrett bristles at the accusation, but John is right. At least a little. A _really_ tiny bit right.

Garrett did kill people; yeah, they were Peggies and some of it was in self-defense – like when they’d just start shooting at him on the road or from planes when he’d been minding his own business – but the other times? Like when he took back the marina or the lumber mill? He probably could’ve – _should’ve_ – found a way to fight the Peggies without killing them.

But he didn’t.

Garrett fucked up.

And it’ll haunt him for the rest of forever.

(He’s really got to stop with the ghost jokes because now he’s doing it unintentionally.)

“Guess we’re both creepy fuck-ups then,” Garrett concedes, ignoring the look of surprise on John’s face, as if he pulled the rug out from underneath him, and he continues on into the bunker.

\---

Mourning wails ring out through the bunker the further they go.

Peggies clutching copies of the Seed family portrait to their chests, crying on each other’s shoulders; there are others who are building shrines to John and the man looks as uncomfortable as Garrett feels.

“Thought you would’ve enjoyed this kind of devotion,” Garrett comments idly, weaving his way through the crowd out of habit than anything else.

“Not really, no,” John says and he sounds pained before quietly adding, “I didn’t want to be put up on a pedestal again.”

And that causes Garrett to raise an eyebrow at him. “You helped start a fanatical Doomsday cult and you _didn’t_ want to be put up on a pedestal? Hate to break it to ya, John, but you got put there anyway.”

John just scowls and shakes his head.

“You wouldn’t understand. You don’t _believe.”_

Garrett sighs; this seems like it’s going to be one of those things that they’ll never see eye to eye on and that’s kind of frustrating to think about considering they’re spending the afterlife as ghosts together. He briefly wonders if there are any other ghosts wandering around Hope County, or if they can even _leave_ the county – he has no clue what the ghost rules are, if there even are any – but he pushes those thoughts away. There’s no way Garrett’s leaving Hope County or Mary May and the others behind while the cult is still around.

“Doesn’t matter if I believe or not,” Garrett tells John as he leads the way further down, heading back towards where he remembers Hudson’s cell being. Hopefully she’s still in there and he can figure a way to get her out (he doubts John would _willingly_ help Garrett get her out of there, even if the guy followed him here). “Hell, Joseph could be right for all I know—”

“He is.”

“—but that’s not the point.”

“Then what is?” John asks and Garrett really wishes these cells were numbered; it would make things a lot easier.

“Glad you asked, John, because the _point,”_ Garrett says as they finally find Hudson’s cell and Garrett pokes his head in only to find it empty. Huh. He pulls his head out and looks John right in the eye. “The point is that even if he’s right he’s going about this in the most backward ass fashion I’ve ever seen.”

John scoffs and Garrett rolls his eyes at him.

“Look, all I’m saying, is that he wants to save people from possible nuclear annihilation? There are better ways to go about it.”

\---

Hudson isn’t in her cell.

She isn’t in any of the cells, and Garrett’s double checked and everything.

“She was still here the last time Terry updated me,” John informs him when he gets tired of Garrett constantly checking and rechecking the cells. “So unless she’s a ghost too there’s no way she could’ve left before the bunker was sealed.”

That… isn’t very comforting.

Because if she isn’t in one of these rooms filled with imprisoned resistance members then…

Honestly, he doesn’t even want to think about it. Garrett just needs to find Hudson and help her get out of here.

They hadn’t seen her with the grieving masses in the upper levels, so she’s probably further down in the bunker.

Turning on his heel, Garrett heads for the stairs, barely hearing John scrambling to catch up with his fast pace. He can hear the annoyed huff the other man lets out.

“Despite what you may think, this is the safest place for her. The Collapse is closer than you realize. If anything, you should be trying to find a way to encourage your friends to join Eden’s Gate,” John says, as if _he’s_ the reasonable one, then adds under his breath, “Lord knows they never listened to me.”

There’s—there’s a _lot_ Garrett could say about that, but that would just lead to an argument and as much as he’s come to enjoy pushing John’s buttons, now really isn’t the time.

“Your sales pitch needed work,” is all he allows himself to say before setting himself to searching every inch of this level before descending to the next, a tunnel-like vision settling in him. The further they go the more he notices that the Peggies are less and less in near hysterics from their grief and are more and more violent and aggressive.

There’s blood on the walls and the very bottom of the bunker has corpses hanging from the rafters. It makes Garrett’s face pull into a disgusted grimace.

“Jesus Christ, John. _This_ is supposed to be the _‘safest’_ place in Holland Valley?”

John gives him a look as they approach one dead cultist propped up in a chair, dead fingers desperately clutching a portrait of the Seed family.

“This,” he points towards the corpses, “was not _my_ doing.”

“Well they didn’t do it themselves.”

Angry blue eyes cut through him and John looks like he’s about to say something, but he’s cut off by the sound of boots on concrete.

“Rook?” Hudson whispers, peeking around the corner with a shiv held tightly in her grasp and for a moment, Garrett thinks she can see him, but she looks right through him, as if he isn’t here. In a way, he really isn’t.

He and John stand there, stock still, like deer in the headlights.

“Hudson?” Garrett asks tentatively, but it doesn’t seem like she heard him. She does step carefully out into the room, warily looking towards the way out, though the door is still locked. A thought pops into his head and he goes back over to the door.

If he can walk through it, maybe he can find a way to disengage the lock? But how would that even work? He can’t even interact with real things anymore.

Hell, he doesn’t even know if he can even interact with John even though they both basically inhabit the same plane of existence.

John watches him with a bored expression as Garrett lets his body phase halfway through the door and he can _see_ the locking mechanism, but he can’t actually _touch_ it no matter how hard he tries.

There’s an exasperated sigh and Garrett pokes his head back out.

“Look, as much fun as it is to watch you do that, you’ll probably have an easier time with computers in the monitoring station.”

“What makes you think that?”

John shrugs. “In a lot of movies ghosts can still manipulate things like lights and radios.”

Garrett’s eyes narrow, but he reaches out and grabs one of John’s arms and huh, apparently they _can_ touch, and drags him through the door. 

“Lead the way,” he says, ignoring John’s squawk of indignation.

\---

Okay, so Garrett’s learned a few things in the past fifteen minutes.

The first being that ghosts can touch, and actually _feel_ real, because John feels warm beneath Garrett’s grasp on his wrist that he has yet to let go of and that John hasn’t tried breaking out of; Garrett isn’t going to dwell on that right now, not when getting Hudson out of the bunker is his current priority.

The other thing is that while Garrett can’t unlock the door himself, he _can_ interact with electrical things like computers to do it for him. Don’t ask him for specifics because he’s not all that clear on it himself, and it’s an even weirder sensation than going through walls and doors. In fact, he’d rather not use another computer for the rest of his afterlife if at all possible, thanks.

“So I just, what? Touch it?” Garrett asks.

John gives him a look that makes Garrett put his hands up in surrender, finally (and a little reluctantly) breaking the contact between them. On the monitors he can see the resistance members still locked in their cells and Hudson bracing herself in the corner she had been hiding in, just waiting for more Peggies to show up which is probably a good idea because as soon as he figures out how to open the doors there’s going to be a lot of chaos.

“Well, here goes nothing. If I die, stay away from my sister.”

“You’re already dead.”

“That’s the spirit.” Garrett grins at John’s groan and no doubt the glare he’s directing at him.

Reaching one hand out, Garrett can feel something crackle in the air between his fingers and the computers and he hasn’t even touched the damn thing yet. As soon as he does there’s a strange buzzing in his head, like somebody filled his skull with bees and shook it, but nothing really happens until he tries focusing a bit and then—

And then there’s a spark and a flash and it feels like he’s being pulled inside out until someone – John it turns out, because who else would it be? – hauls him away. His arms shake and his eyes won’t focus, but from what he _can_ see is that all the doors are unlocked now.

He blinks dazedly, trying to figure out how he did that – especially without setting of any alarms or sirens – but his mind keeps wandering away from him and John’s saying something and kind of looking concerned (that’s weird, right? Up until recently the guy has been trying to basically maim Garrett and they’re ghosts now, he shouldn’t be worried).

But Hudson and the others are free now. That’s the important part.

Because Garrett really, _really_ doesn’t want to touch a computer ever again if that’s going to happen every time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all can find me [here](http://edmunderson.tumblr.com/) if you wanna talk about far cry 5


End file.
